Pathfinder’s Journey, part 7

JP was watching the lessons between
Kota and her wife as they sat in a quiet spot among the trees. The lanky woman
had to promise to remain quiet if she wanted to join them. The shaman from the
Whitefeather Clan wasn’t happy about an outsider listening in but knew that
forbidding her to join them from time to time would alienate him from Cierra.

“You don’t need the necklace to jump. It’s merely a
prop for you now. You only needed it at first to discover the path. Think of
it like a map, if you will.”

The young shaman woman looked at him in shock. “I don’t need it? And what
if someone else had it? Could they use it too?”

“Doubtful. It takes a special person to even tap into
the next world. I’m a shaman and couldn’t use it because it isn’t within my
abilities. Why don’t you try it?”

Cierra stood there nervously for a moment and hesitated
in removing the fetish. She hadn’t taken it off since she first received it
from the old man at the convention nearly two years earlier. She handed it to
JP to hold and listened to the man’s instructions.

“Do you remember how you first learned to use it?”

Cierra nodded.

“It’s the same way without it. Concentrate on your destination.
Focus on--”

She had disappeared from his sight before he could finish.

Cierra felt the familiar sensation of the jump and opened
her eyes just as the sound of locked brakes and skidding stones told her that
she had just made a monumental mistake. She tried to jump to safety and all
went black.

·* * *

JP waited for her lover to return but after several
minutes she began to get nervous. It wasn’t like Cierra to be gone like that.
She would have returned right away even if she had spotted something that she
wanted to investigate.

“Where is she?” JP asked unreasonably of Kota. The man
had no way of knowing.

For once the self-confidant man looked confused and
lost.

“Damn it, if anything happened to her you’re a dead
man!” she promised, pacing around the small clearing.

Cierra felt the passage of time but only for a few seconds
at a time. She was aware of pain, sounds, and unfamiliar surroundings but nothing
clearly. She would fall into darkness again and was haunted by memories of others.

When she woke long enough to realize where she was the
shaman felt panic. She was clearly in a hospital room but where? She tried to
figure out how she had gotten there but the memory just wasn’t there.

She carefully turned her head and looked around her.
A woman gasped and Cierra saw a nurse in a bright smock looking at her. The
woman stepped closer and asked how she was feeling. Cierra was too thirsty to
even speak and the woman offered her a drink, accustomed to the symptom from
being asleep for so long.

After drinking her fill she leaned back, exhausted.

“You just relax. I’m going to speak to your doctor,
Ms. White.” The nurse left the room, closing the door behind her.

Cierra had almost fallen asleep again when the door
opened and a man in his sixties wearing green scrubs came into the room.

“Well, Ms. White, I see you’re finally awake. You gave
us all quite a scare but you’re doing fine now.” He studied her with his eyes
as the nurse began taking her vitals.

“What happened?”

“Well, young lady, it seems you popped onto a two lane
highway from out of no where and the driver clipped you. He had almost managed
to miss you but he had panicked. He had locked his breaks and his old car didn’t
have ABS.”

“Hurt.” Cierra managed to get out, she felt it getting
harder to remain awake.

“I’m sure you do. We’re giving you some pain medication
to make it more tolerable but we had to do a lot of repairs on your leg. It
was badly broken and we put in a plate and pins to hold it together. You also
have some badly bruised ribs and some bad scrapes. We realized you were pregnant
and took all precautions in examining you.”

“The baby…”

“Is fine. The tyke rode out the accident a lot better
than her mother did. You’ll probably be here at least another week. After that,
well, I guess it’s up to the authorities.”

Cierra wondered why they had any say in it but at the
moment was too tired to argue. She closed her eyes and fell back asleep.

The doctor motioned the nurse out of the room where
they met with Major Winthrop.

“Is she awake?”

“She was for a few moments but fell asleep again. Between
the shock to her system and the medication she’ll have trouble remaining awake
for a day or two.”

“Keep me informed,” he ordered the physician. The major
had his hands full keeping away the reporters, nuts, and curiosity seekers.
Someone in the hospital had let someone know that the Shaman had been brought
into the emergency room and all hell broke loose. He walked down to the outer
perimeter of the sealed corridor and waited for the irate woman to tear into
him again.

She was some hotshot female lawyer demanding that she
be allowed to see her client. Apparently she had in her possession a notarized
document giving her say over Cierra White’s medical treatment. He didn’t know
that the form had been filled in when Cierra had been dating Hallie. She had
wanted to avoid being hooked up to life support if she was beyond reasonable
hope. Cierra had no family and Hallie had been her only choice when she had
made the decision.

“Major, I demand you let me see my client. You can’t
hold her prisoner when she hasn’t committed a crime.”

“She isn’t a prisoner, Ms. Preston. We are just concerned
with her safety. We don’t believe the local police would be able to handle this.”

“That’s all well and good but the fact remains that
I’ve been denied access to her. You are treating her without my consent.”

“She looks like a competent adult to me nor is she in
danger of being hooked up to life support. Your authority over her is invalid
unless she is incapable of speaking for herself.”

Hallie knew he was correct but she wasn’t about to give
up now. “Then she’s awake? I want to see her.”

“She was awake for a moment and fell back asleep. The
doctor said she would be mostly asleep for the next few days. Why don’t you
go home and--”

“And come back and find her gone? Forget it Major, I’m
not about to let that happen. Now, are you going to let me see her or shall
I go to the reporters outside and tell them she’s being held prisoner by the
military?”

The Major counted to ten then did
it again for good measure. “Very well. Follow me.” He spun on his heel and escorted
her to Cierra’s room.

Once inside the room she demanded that he leave them
alone. He protested but she scathingly reminded him that she had been searched
for weapons already. He huffed and left the room.

Hallie looked down at her ex lover and bit her lip.
It had been almost two years since she last saw her. Cierra’s hair was longer
and although Cierra had been attractive before, she had never been this buff
and tanned. She was still very good looking in spite of the bruises and scrapes.

“Cierra, sweetheart?” Hallie placed her hand on Cierra’s
shoulder.

Cierra opened her deep brown eyes and looked at her for several seconds before
signs of recognition appeared on her features. “Hallie?”

“Yes, it’s me. How are you feeling?”

Cierra moaned. “Like shit. Why are you here?”

The lawyer sighed. It wasn’t exactly the happy reunion
she had hoped for but at least she wasn’t told to get the hell out. “I heard
you were here and had to see you. Just because we broke up doesn’t mean I don’t
care about you.”

Cierra sighed. She was just too tired to fight. Besides,
she was glad to see someone other than the medical staff or military. Maybe
she could see other people like Jim or Mabel.

“They’re going to let me have visitors?”

Hallie frowned. “I doubt it. I had to bluff and fight
my way in.”

“Fuck, I want friends to visit too.”

Hallie swallowed hard. The comment meant she wasn’t
counted among her friends. She now had to rethink her idea of asking Cierra
for another try at a relationship. Well, she couldn’t blame Cierra for feeling
like that.

“Let me see what I can do. Is there anything else I
can do for you?” She looked down at Cierra and noticed she was once again sound
asleep. She walked out of the room quietly.

The Major was looking at her.

“She’s asleep again. I’ll come back later this afternoon.
She mentioned wanting to allow friends to visit.”

“Too dangerous. Anyone can claim to be a friend.”

“Well, perhaps I can get a list from her this afternoon.
Then you can restrict them to only those people. Is that acceptable?”

The uniformed man sighed. “I suppose if I refuse I’ll
be made out to be the cruelest officer since Captain Bly. Fine, bring me the
list and I’ll have the names checked. Until this afternoon, Ms. Preston.” The
man signaled a corporal to escort the lawyer from the secured area.

·* * *

JP was frantic. It had been two days and Cierra hadn’t
returned. Kota, being a wise man in spite of his jackass tendencies had kept
out of sight. A pall had settled over the village and people quietly and worriedly
did their chores although their heart wasn’t in it.

After pacing for hours and punching a few innocent trees,
JP entered the home she shared with Cierra and wept. She hadn’t left since and
her friends were worried about her. Jenny brought her food but it remained untouched.
No one could console the woman who feared the worst.

JP gripped the fetish in her hands and prayed constantly,
her medicine bag clutched to her chest. She was convinced if she prayed hard
enough that she could bring Cierra back to her. She rubbed the black stone and
suddenly remembered what her spouse had said about them. She got up and looked
around the house until she spotted an empty pot. She took a small hammer and
managed to make a small jagged hole on one side of it.

“What was it that needed to be inside?” she muttered.
She recalled cornmeal and…then she remembered, turquoise dust. She didn’t have
any but the jeweler did. She left the house in a hurry and knocked frantically
on her door. The woman saw the desperate need in JP’s face and asked what she
could do for her.

“Turquoise dust, do you have any?”

“I might. I was just working on some--” JP rushed into
the room to the desk and spotted the gravel and dust on the tabletop. She scooped
it up onto her palm and rushed from the building, not even thanking the dumbfounded
artist.

She returned to her home and sprinkled the dust into
the bottom of the pot. She didn’t want to go to the kitchens but recalled that
she had cornmeal in her medicine bag. She opened the bundle and sprinkled it
into the pot too. She looked around and found a place that overlooked their
home and placed it there.

JP took the cord off the fetish and carefully placed
the stone inside and covered the top with a cloth. Now surrounded in turquoise
and fed, the fetish would now look over the family.

Now that she had arranged everything, JP felt a little
foolish. It was just a stone.

She crawled into their feather bed and held Cierra’s
pillow in her arms and wept.